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Is this what a midlife crisis looks like? If bad things happened in threes, then Kate was staring at the perfect cherry on top of this year’s depressing sundae. And it was only the first of May.
Not that her husband seemed at all concerned. Oh, no. David’s puppy dog-like brown eyes were drooping in that “I’m so sorry” expression he got when he’d been caught doing something wrong. Did he ever change his ways, no matter how many times over the course of twenty years she’d asked him to please stop flirting, ogling, and otherwise pursuing women as if he weren’t actually married?
Of course not. And now here he was, entwined with Bonnie. In his and Kate’s own bed. In the perfect, cozy house she’d spent years perfecting through hard work, both outside and inside the home. Birds chirped a lazy, late-morning song, having already sung their little hearts out earlier that Wednesday with their frenetic dawn foraging activity. The bedroom with its beige walls was warmed by rays of sunshine that invaded through hastily closed blinds, illuminating the lovers’ bare skin.
It had to be Kate’s best friend, because why not? What could be more poetic than David and Bonnie finally acting upon all those years of teasing one another?
“Of all the women,” Kate said, willing her voice not to hitch, despite the way her fists balled reflexively at her sides. “Really, David.”
His mouth dropped open, some justification or another probably half-formed in his brain.
She spun on her heel. Why wait for an answer? An explanation? An excuse? David had been waiting for this moment for years, the opportunity to cheat on her. He’d signaled it with his ongoing flirtation with Bonnie and now he’d acted. Maybe he’d even acted on it before today, and Kate had been too caught up in work to notice.
Too bad this meant Kate needed not just a new spouse, but also a new best friend. Or maybe neither. Maybe it was time to let go of the idea of bothering with friends. Friends needed care and feeding. So did husbands.
She stormed through the house in all its beige and teal perfection, slammed the door, and strode to her car. Somehow, through the tears blurring her vision, Kate made it down the street, to the parking lot of the busy chain store everyone loved to hate. It wasn’t a place she shopped. She hated the crowds, the everyday low deals on inferior products, and their unfair employment practices. It was the perfect place to lose herself. No one would find her here. Not that she expected David to chase her. The die was cast.
Her sleek black sedan blended in with the sea of cars, trucks, and minivans, the camouflage she needed while she let herself cry behind deeply tinted windows.
It took longer than she would have liked to get a hold of herself, especially since she knew she wasn’t crying for David or Bonnie. It was for herself, for twenty years wasted on his crap, when she could have had anyone else. She started listing off names of past lovers in her mind, people who would still be thrilled to have her: Mike, Josh, Nicole...
Oh yes, she’d had something good with Nicole back in college. A supposed night of experimentation that’d become three years of happy cohabitation until she met David and he somehow managed to con her into marriage.
With shaking hands, Kate opened her purse and retrieved her phone from its depths. Jeez, what did she keep in here? The usual suspects—wallet, tampons, planner, charger cord, hairbrush with a few strands of her shoulder-length red hair in it... oh, and a make-up bag to look good for some lying, cheating bastard.
If only life were simpler, was her one wild thought before unlocking the phone.
Despite the fact that she’d turned forty-five last winter, she called her little sister. It wasn’t like she could call Bonnie anymore to complain about David’s wandering eye. Now she had seen for herself that wasn’t the only part of his body that’d gone where it shouldn’t.
Michelle picked up on the second ring.
“Hey, I was just thinking about you.” She sounded slightly out of breath and there was a muffled clanking in the background. “Are you coming to Mikey’s graduation party?”
Kate bit back a groan and closed her eyes. Right. Her niece, affectionately known as Katherine Michelle, Jr. graduated from high school this weekend. Well, it was a homeschool graduation, but that was neither here nor there. The point was her niece was about to turn seventeen and start college within a few short months. Michelle was throwing her daughter a party, a combination of family and homeschool friends, mostly Mikey’s theater buddies.
“Yeah, I’ll be there,” Kate answered without opening her eyes or thinking about the words. She’d make it work, somehow, but what would she do after that?
“Oh, but you called me, so you must need to talk.” There was another clank, followed by a low “mmm” sound. “Perfect,” Michelle declared.
“I caught you baking again, didn’t I?”
“Of course. Cupcakes for Kenna’s barn dance this weekend.” Sometimes it amazed Kate how different her nieces were, the oldest at home on stage, the youngest most content mucking horse stalls. Goodness knew what her grown-up nephews were up to these days. She couldn’t keep up with any of them.
Kate blew out a sigh. It was now or never, and she could already predict her sister’s reaction. Might as well tell the truth, no matter how much it hurt.
“David cheated on me with Bonnie. I just caught them together.”
Saying the words out loud made her catch her breath and for one wild, heart-pounding moment, she thought she would burst into fresh tears. But the confession, given form and so bluntly stated, lifted a weight from her. She chuckled, a mirthless laugh that didn’t convey joy so much as shock.
As Michelle sputtered with indignation on the other end of the call, Kate repeated, “David cheated on me with Bonnie, but you know what? I don’t care. The principle of the thing sucks, but so what? I’m done with him.”
“Yay!” Michelle’s ear-splitting yelp made Kate jump. “Sorry. That was uncalled for, but you know how I feel about him.”
Kate not only knew. Over the past several years, she had secretly agreed with Michelle and was grateful her sister was too nice to say, I told you so.
“However... Sorry, not sorry,” Michelle said, glee permeating every syllable. “Wait—didn’t you turn down some remote research trip this year because of him?”
“Yeah, but guess where I’m going after all?” Technically, Kate had no clue where she was going, until her sister mentioned it. Maybe that was what she needed right now, some spark of her old life to guide her through this strange new world she liked to think of as “Holy Shit, I’m Getting Divorced Land.”
“How cool!” Michelle squealed. “Oh my gosh, you have to call Aunt Katherine! How cool is that? We haven’t seen her forever and she’s your and Mikey’s namesake, which means you really ought to see her again. You get to go to our motherland and on the research trip of a lifetime. You’re free! Aren’t you excited?”
Excitement didn’t factor into the sensations roiling through her at the moment. Maybe it would later, but for now a deep breath pulled every last tingle of emotion from her, leaving Kate nothing but drained.
She’d done her share of research trips in her twenties when she was career-driven and idealistic. Technically, she’d never lost that ambition to further her career, that passion for her work. Somehow, though, she’d lost herself between thirty-five and forty-five. Every time David pointed out her devotion to her work and how their window of opportunity to have a normal family life and support his political aspirations was shrinking, she’d pulled back a little more. More and more, until her main role was to support David in his run for the city council. Now he was talking about the legislature, and all Kate had to do was smile and wave.
God, how she hated smiling and waving.
No, she couldn’t get excited about returning to her own career yet. Not when everything he’d done to tug and shove and mold her into his image of the ideal wife irked her.
But maybe somewhere along the way, she would find the pieces of herself that she’d lost.
BETWEEN MAKING SEVERAL trips to David’s house—Kate refused to think of it as “home” anymore, regardless of who’s names were on the deed and the amount of time and energy she’d put into making it theirs—to get the few belongings that mattered to her, and communicating with the college to secure her spot on the research trip, Kate stayed too busy to care about the change in her life. Diving into her work was a balm to her soul. Sort of, anyway. It provided both distraction and mental stimulation.
Though there were times it was exhausting, fending off questions about how David was doing and what’d brought her back to academia. She could laugh off the divorce and claim she’d outgrown him. It was easy to pretend she was fine, life was fine, everything was fine, because she was preparing for what her fellow ornithologists considered the research trip of a lifetime. The younger ones especially remarked on envying her, so she let herself try to bask in that.
Except, there was little pleasure derived from her colleagues’ approval and allying with her when the subject of her divorce came up in conversation. Her nonchalance wasn’t entirely feigned. Kate just felt numb, as if she was going through the motions and seeing everything through a distant lens.
It was at night in the temporary apartment the college provided for her that despair overtook the numbness and swept it aside like a tidal wave.
“It hurts,” Kate told Michelle at Mikey’s party. Her nieces were laughing with their friends, chattering about whatever teenagers talked about these days while Kate and her sister sipped from wine glasses like the two middle-aged women they were. “Not his infidelity, but knowing I married someone I thought respected me and supported my ambitions.”
“When it was really all about him,” Michelle agreed. “I mean, you gave up your job and the opportunity to go to Fair Isle, of all places. Are you really going, now? Please say you are. You deserve to follow your passion.”
Kate nodded and wished some internal positive reaction accompanied the gesture. She ought to be as excited as her colleagues and family seemed to be when they found out about the trip.
Fair Isle was where it all began, when she was a little girl visiting her grandparents and Great Aunt Katherine. One tour of the bird observatory had ignited her love for her chosen field of study all those years ago. It didn’t hurt that Fair Isle was, quite literally, her motherland. It’d been where they summered year after year in her youth, visiting the small cluster of family that’d dwindled with the inevitability of death over time.
“What does the old lady think?” Michelle's question pulled her from her musing.
“I haven’t told her yet,” Kate admitted. “I have a room at the observatory, so I don’t need to put her out.”
“Come on. Aunt Katherine lives to be put out. It’s her reason for existing.” Michelle tipped her wineglass to her lips, draining the last few pale pink drops of her White Zinfandel. “I probably shouldn’t ask, but what does David think?”
Kate released a long sigh. Caring about what David thought was a matter of habit, one she had to break. That was when she welcomed the sense of detachment that clung to her during the daylight hours. To hell with what David thought.
“He claims he loves me, so he has to set me free.”
Michelle snorted. “Ew. What a joke. He is so gross and deluded. Can I kick him in the balls?”
“Be my guest.” It was the first thing Kate heard in a long time that made her crack a smile. She knew Michelle would do it, too, given the chance. The trick would be finding David’s balls in the first place. “I’m completely done with him. The upside is I’ve already contacted an attorney and signed the papers. She’s filing them on Monday. Since there’s no waiting period for our state, I want this divorce started before I leave the country.”
“That sounds good to me. It’s the easiest way to lose an extra couple of hundred pounds. How long are you staying on Fair Isle?”
Kate fiddled with her glass. Not long enough, as far as she was concerned. If she could pick up her entire life and move it there right now, she would. The idea of an escape appealed to her, but she told herself that it wasn’t rational. It was only the pain talking, and she was sure that would abate, sooner or later.
“I’m supposed to stay for a year, but maybe longer. I’m leaving on Tuesday.”
“So soon? Crap, this is like a goodbye party, now.” Even though she was clearly tipsy, Michelle went to the refreshment table and poured another glass of wine. “Here’s to freedom, new adventures, and life among the birds and the sheep.”
“To freedom, birds, and sheep,” Kate agreed, raising her glass, wishing the words sparked some kind of recognizable emotional reaction. There was nothing except lead in her belly. “And to Scotland.”